Yours truly with Robert Kaplan, Tokyo, 12 March 2010

After Robert D. Kaplan spoke at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, I approached him and he graciously invited me to attend the exclusive reception. His assistant whispered the location and time, and I went outside for a breather and to send off this misspelled missive (soon followed by this amelioration).

The reception started at 8PM, at a nearby Italian restaurant. I had to catch a bullet train back to Nagoya that night, so I could only spare an hour. Many of the invitees were already standing around inside the restaurant, drinking wine and talking with one another. I waited outside for Kaplan and his assistant who came a little late.

There were approximately 20 people there, a small portion of the lecture attendees. There were no embassy people at the reception. In fact, I was the only foreigner there (besides Kaplan of course). This was excellent because it gave me access to Kaplan as the only native speaker. I spent the first 10 minutes or so chatting with SPF staff and an Asahi Globe reporter. In the meantime Kaplan made the rounds (with a glass of white wine), mingling with some impressively establishment-looking people. Except for my open-collar and chinos, everyone was in ties and knee-length skirts. It was the height of officialdom, yet the atmosphere was friendly. Everyone could speak English as far as I could tell. Not surprising, as I expect most have had education abroad.

Kaplan worked his way back to me and we started to chat while picking at some of the food set out on trays. He asked me about life in Japan and what I was doing now (the last time we met, I had just started graduate school at RMC). I asked him how long he was in Japan for, and he answered Sunday. His plan was to check out Yasukuni Shrine on Saturday (I was there year before last), if he didn’t have to do some last minute editing over the phone for his upcoming Foreign Affairs article.

Soon we were approached by a retired admiral of the JMSDF. He exclaimed proudly that he was a graduate of the Naval War College, where Kaplan taught for two years. The retired admiral wanted to make a point to Kaplan, who had asserted in his speech that Asian countries had been expanding their military over the past few decades. The Ret Admiral pointed out that in terms of percent of GDP, Japan was the only country in Asia whose military spending has been going down. Comparative military spending is a difficult issue in the case of Japan, since its GDP is so large. Even though its spending is only 1% of GDP, in real terms it is quite a bit more than other countries in the region. This topic has been broached many times by Japan hands such as Dick Samuels and Chris Hughes.

Nevertheless, the Ret Admiral continued with another interesting point. Due to Japanese restrictions on arms trading, a policy that he felt was being interpreted too loosely, Japan could not benefit from economies of scale in arms manufacturing. In other words, because it could not produce more arms than it needed and sell the surplus to foreign countries, thereby bringing down the total cost of production, Japan was effectively paying too much for its own weapons. This put Japan at less of an advantage than normally assumed. The Ret Admiral estimated the price to be 1.5 times the expected market rate. Previously some of you may have heard me joking about the cost of Japanese arms, that prices were high because each bullet came individually wrapped. The Ret Admiral’s perspective gives a more realistic insight to the subject.

Kaplan expressed his need to eat and we parted from the Ret Admiral to the food trays at the rear of the room. Everyone was standing, but Kaplan had been doing so all night, so we pulled up some chairs and sat for a chat. It was then that I asked him a question I meant to ask during the lecture (but could not do so for the pillar I was seated behind, putting me beyond his line of sight). I asked him how his thinking on China has changed over the years (something the strategist was also wondering). Looking at Kaplan’s writing from a few years ago, especially in the Atlantic Monthly article How We Would Fight China (which Curzon covered here), and comparing it to his recent work with CNAS (one article of which I reviewed), Kaplan has moved toward advocating a policy of engagement and binding China into the international system, rather than containment. Furthermore, you will recall from the lecture, Kaplan said, “China does not seek to go to war with the US, now or ever.”

He answered that his thinking has changed. Right away he brought up 2005 article (which I had not mentioned), and the reaction to it which (some covered by us) he thought was sensationalist. “They only look at the headline…” he said despondently. When I told him I thought the article was more about deterring China (the key quote coming to mind being “The better road is for PACOM to deter China in Bismarckian fashion…”) he exclaimed, “Exactly! That’s how I meant it to be.” I asked him if it was supposed to be a “think piece”, which he affirmed, adding that he wrote the article after two years with the US Navy, which he feels is obsessed with China. I wanted to explore the evolution of his thinking further, but we were joined by a DPJ lower house member, who pulled up a seat of her own and broke into our conversation.

What followed was Kaplan being told “how it was in Japan”, something I tried my best to mitigate. Soon another gentlemen, this time from a thinktank, came over and joined in. Talk turned to Guam, and the Futenma base issue. Kaplan’s opinion was to get the Marines off of Okinawa.

I asked him about his teaching experience at the Naval War College, how many students he had and the like. He said he taught two sections of 20 midshipmen each. He shook his head and said, “You know, teaching, if you take it seriously, is much, much harder than journalism.” He related his tiring experience marking papers. Kaplan said he gave only essay questions, and tried his hardest to teach his students how to write, since that is a skill they would use in their day jobs even after school.

By this time, it was nearing 9PM, and I had a train to catch. I got the attention of the SPF staff and had my photo taken with Kaplan (see above). This being Japan, soon everyone had their cameras out. While I moved away he thanked me again for the work on the site. I tried to express my thanks in return, but I was in a rush.

Curzon knows this, but I assume most of our readers have never met Kaplan, so I would like to make it very clear: Robert Kaplan is the nicest guy you could ever meet in real life. He is very modest, and watching him deal with those functionaries I could see that he is a good listener (mark of a good journo). Both Curzon and I have used the term “gracious”, but I could think of a dozen more adjectives that still would not communicate how amicable he has been to us.

If you are reading this Mr Kaplan, thank you again for your time and for your writing. I very much look forward to meeting you again someday.

First, let me describe the setting. The Sasakawa Peace Foundation is part of one of the most conservative thinktanks in Japan. I am familiar with them from my thesis research. Nevertheless, they seem to have some interesting speakers. Robert Kagan will be speaking there at the end of the month. I did not get a peek at the guest list, so I cannot guess as to the politics of those present. One questioner identified himself as from the Okazaki Institute. During the reception I was approached by a reporter from the Asahi Shinbun, a traditionally liberal paper, and chatted with a DPJ member of the House of Representatives. In other words, it wasn’t a uniformly conservative audience. Also, there seemed to be a lot of foreign embassy staff. About a quarter to a third of the audience were non-Japanese. Many were south and south-east Asian. A representative from the Chinese embassy stood up and asked Kaplan a question (more on that later).

I arrived on the scene later than I should have, and was seated halfway behind a pillar, with barely a view of Kaplan himself. The stage was set up in the large first floor lobby of the Nippon Foundation building. There were about 70 people arranged in a horseshoe, with intermittent pillars. The acoustics were not the greatest. At the back of the room was an enclosed booth where simultaneous translation was being broadcast to radio earpieces offered at the entrance of the building. Copies of Kaplan’s Foreign Affairs article from last year Center Stage for the 21st Century: Power Plays in the Indian Ocean, were also provided for all attendees in both English and Japanese.

Kaplan entered a few minutes after 6. He seemed a bit more stooped than last time I saw him, nearly 5 years ago, but still in good health. You wouldn’t think he is nearly 60 years old. After some initial words from the organizers and moderator, Kaplan took the lectern and spoke for just over one hour. The lecture was delivered in that evenly paced manner he always uses, often broken with an aside, or related point. He barely stopped to breathe, and I don’t think he even took a sip of water the whole time. Kaplan always seems to have so much more to say than what time allows. I guess that’s what makes such a prolific writer. After a short break, he sat at a table and answered questions for another half hour. Once he was finished, many people approached him, myself included.

As with last time we met, he was very gracious. He thanked me profusely for our efforts on the web, and signed my copy of Hog Pilots (my review here).

“Thanks so much for your great website and all your support over the years – Robert Kaplan”

He motioned to his assistant and invited me to attend the reception, a private function held later at a different venue. The assistant came up to me and right away asked if I was the one that writes the blog. She told me that Kaplan had told her a rep from the blog might arrive. Maybe he read my post from last week? Flattering! Once I knew I would have a chance to talk to him over some wine later, I made way for others who were clambering for his attention. They didn’t have long, for Kaplan was whisked away for a private pow-wow with a handful of journalists. We met up again, across the street at the reception, which I will cover in my next post.

I asked the SPF people if they would publish the speech as a podcast. They said they wouldn’t, so I have included my notes from the lecture for your reference. Disclaimer: they may be a bit obscure. Don’t hesitate to ask for clarification in the comments. I will do my best to answer.

Notes

• trying to get beyond the US obsession with wars in the greater Middle East


• Afghan/Iraq wars to fast-forward the “Asian Century”


• great militaries come from economically vibrant countries


• while US in Afghan/Iraq and Europe in otherplaces
  
  • China, Japan, S.Korea, India have been evolving


• there is an arms competition in Asia
  
  • Golden Age of Balance-of-Power politics


• Mackinder: “All balance, all free.”


• from late 1970s big changes in the Asian militaries
  
  • from unsophisticated forces to full-fledged modern organizations
  
  
  • from INWARD focus to OUTWARD focus


• therefore Asia is becoming closed in, claustrophobic


• military power is moving from Europe to Asia
  
  • EU: sees military as civil servants in uniforms [see our discussion on this here]
  
  
  • this is not the case in China or India


• entering the Asian military century


• US Navy shifting from a 2 ocean strategy (Atlantic, Pacific) to a 2 ocean strategy (Indian, Pacific)


• navigable “Rimland” (from Horn of Africa → Sea of Japan) is new hot area


• USMC also making this shift (as of 2008)

About the Indian Ocean

• covers arc of Islam


• culturally united region


• Cold War era Area Studies divisions of Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia etc are actually not that different


• there has been lots of interaction between them (eg. Arab communities in China in the 9th C.)


• Why so united? Predictable monsoon winds let them travel the 4000 miles back and forth


• Indian Ocean is a “small intimate sea in cultural terms”


• Islam spread with seafaring trade


• but Asian Islam is different


• anywho, we are going back to this classical supra-region


• the CW era Area Studies divisions will become less relevant

Conflict between India and China

• India is expanding horizontally (to east and west) while China is expanding vertically (southwards)


• China is active in Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka


• this is not a “string of pearls” (at least not now)


• Chinese are enthralled by Cheng Ho. They are saying:
  
  • “Indian ocean is part of out sphere”
  
  
  • “our power is subtle and benevolent”
  
  
  • Cheng Ho didn’t conquer any territory (brought trade, did the hajj)


• Implicit alliances and port access rather than explicit alliances. China’s goal is access


• at the same time in India you see the rise of Neo-Curzonians [see this shoutout to Curzon posted last year]


• Curzon expounded a vision of a Greater India (incl. Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan etc.)


• Indian and Chinese spheres overlap: this will be the great competition of 21st C.


• Indian navy has expansive presence: feeling of optimism


• PROBLEM: Indian army officers wholly different
  
  • obsessed by Nepal, Pak, refugees
  
  
  • surrounded by semi-failed states
  
  
  • cannot become a GREAT POWER because of border problems


• China has secured its land borders: going to sea is a luxury


• small island nations go to sea as a matter of course, great continental states OTO luxury


• But Chinese seafaring is problematic: boxed in by US allies


• Chinese Navy needs to break out of this “straitjacket”


• But not head-to-head


• develop niche capabilities: subs, mines, OTH radar, cyberwarfare
  
  • disuasion, denial of access


• China does not seek to go to war with the US, now or ever


• eventually want to incorporate the 1st island chain


• but at the same time, it relies on US for open SLOCs


• Indian Ocean: “Global Energy Interstate”


• want to diversify from Malacca


• two choices:
  
  1. ports along Indian ocean littoral (Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh)
  
  
  2. Kra Isthmus canal (“Japanese might also be into this some day”)

Let me talk about Sri Lanka

• indicator of new geopolitics


• in a sense “China won” the civil war


• Western powers stopped military aid


• China stepped into the gap, defended SL at the UNSC, gave arms, fighter jets, etc


• at the same time China started building port in the south Hambantota


• China will probably never have a fully operational naval base in SL (too provocative to India)

New Great Game

• Spykman in 1943, Mackinder before, now 2010 and it seems similar


• no apparent dominant power in Rimland


• a new balancing game


• a economic system from Japan to Horn of Africa


• like in the old days


• hopefully a peaceful era BUT


• multipolar = unstable (references Mearsheimer’s Great Power Politics)


• US Navy has downgraded, but still dominant, however less dominant


• think it is a great era of opportunity for the US


• as an extra-territorial power, US could be a linchpin

Future

• talked about military and trade, but not about environmental disaster


• seeing the militarization of relief aid [talked about here too]


• we want more freer, liberal societies. But young ones are fragile and unstable.


• NKorea could be “mother of all humanitarian interventions”

Questions

The notes below are on just the few questions I found interesting. — YH

• How do you get information on China, considering language barrier? Kaplan said he reads translations (many done by Naval War College) of works from Chinese thinktanks. Concedes point on language barrier.


• When asked about China’s intentions (by an Okazaki Institute guy) Kaplan said he follows advice that he learned from the military: Don’t concern yourself with motives, follow capabilities.


• What will happen with Diego Garcia in 2016? Kaplan says lease is likely to be renewed, but hard to predict domestic UK politics.


• Any people thinking like this in Obama admin? CNAS people in the Obama admin, but like all modern governments, they are too busy going from crisis to crisis. 14 hour days make it too difficult to just think. That is why guys like Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski were so amazing.


• On Afghanistan: if US is successful in Afghanistan, it will be to the advantage of China, since it will mean that Pakistan will have been stabilized Pakistan to allow for more Chinese road-building, energy traffic, etc.

END

The Problems:

• The United States government is either unwilling or unable to adequately patrol and secure the nation’s borders.


• A large number of Americans feel that their wish for a secure and better patrolled border is not being met.


• Insecure borders allow easy infiltration of illegal immigrants, organized crime, and terrorists into the United States. It also increases the ease of the smuggling and trafficking of drugs, weapons and people.

The Reaction

• A proliferation of self-organized groups like the Minutemen.


• This has led to:
  

  • Government, media and left wing hysteria that ordinary people would take responsibility for their country into their own hands.
  
  
  • Potential problems and miscommunication with law enforcement.
  
  
  • Potential legal questions.
  
  

Solution:

The solution to this problem is neither more CBP people, bigger government or more centralization. In fact these are surefire ways to make matters worse. The solution lies in harnessing the sizeable numbers of citizens who are willing to volunteer their time, effort, and even assume some risk in order to protect their communities and country. Moreover, the militia, as meant in the Bill of Rights (every adult male with a firearm) has been called up before and in recent history. During WWII, the militia was called up on the West Coast in 1942 to guard against Japanese landings and I believe on the East Coast against German ones but cant find a link on that at the moment.

Read the rest here.

Divided by geography, cursed by corruption, stunted by poverty, staggered by a growing insurgency—Afghanistan seems beyond salvation. Is it? From Somalia and the Balkans to Iraq, the U.S. military has been embroiled in conflicts that reflect an age-old debate: Can individual agency triumph over deep-seated historical, cultural, ethnic, and economic forces? Drawing on his experiences in Iraq, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, has his own answer to that question.

So begins Kaplan’s latest on the offensive in Afghanistan. Like America’s Civil War, the history to Iraq and Afghanistan will read like a president trying to find the right general. The opening lines of the article make it clear that many think that McChrystal was the man personally responsible for reducing the violence in Baghdad.

In December 2006, [Lieutenant Colonel Richard] Williams told me, there were more than 140 suicide bombings in Baghdad, a level of violence that he likened to the Nazi Blitz on London. In December 2007, there were five. “General McChrystal delivered that statistic,” a feat that not even the recent bombings in Baghdad can detract from. In Iraq, he went on, General Stanley A. McChrystal raised the “hard, nasty business” of counterterrorism—of “black ops”—to an industrial scale, with 10 nightly raids throughout the city, 300 a month, that McChrystal, now 55, regularly joined.

Kaplan spoke with McChrystal in Kabul and he recalled the spring of 2006 when some thought they had already lost. But they fought back any reservations and doubt about their success and found “this sense of … mission, passion … I don’t know what you call it. The insurgents… had a real cause, and we had a counter-cause. We had a level of unit cohesion.”

Theorists of the balance of power often leave the impression that it is the natural form of international relations. In fact, balance-of-power systems have existed only rarely in human history. The Western Hemisphere has never known one, nor as the territory of contemporary China since the end of the period of warring states, over 2,000 years ago. For the greatest part of humanity and the longest periods of history, empire has been the typical mode of government. Empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the international system. Empires have no need for a balance of power. That is how the United States has conducted its foreign policy in the Americas, and China through most of its history in Asia.

Reading about the 19th and early 20th centuries, I found myself wondering—will a healthy and robust balance of power between the US, China, India, Europe, and possibly Russia and Japan, emerge in the 21st century? Empire, and the balance of power, both work well for preserving international order when they function. When they don’t function, the result is often war and disaster.

The UAE has a postal agency called Emirates Post, which operates the post offices across the country and which has about two dozen branches in Dubai, a city of about 2 million people. These branches hold post office boxes, where mail of all sizes can be delivered, but they do not deliver this mail to the recipients. It is the responsibility of the recipient to contract a post office box and check this to receive mail. (Not surprisingly, this can be a major hassle for anyone who works a full day at work, but fortunately, these post offices are generally open 24 hours a day.)

This means that addresses in Dubai are incredibly basic. If you have a PO box number, the only information you need to get something delivered is:

Mr./Ms. XYZ
P.O. Box #####
Dubai, UAE

Dubai also does not have numbered street addresses, probably because construction is so prevelant and roads are always changing that building numbers would be constantly changing. That provides a different conundrum if you want something delivered by international courier such as FedEx or DHL. The sender must write an address to best describe the place of deliver, typically listing the building name and neighborhood description. For example:

Mr. XYZ
Suite No. 999
XYZ Building
Jebel Ali Freezone, Gate 2, First right after entry
Dubai, UAE

Just make sure you include a reliable phone number so the couriers can ask for directions and confirm delivery time. The same happens when you have things delivered. Stores often include a form for drawing a map to your home to avoid confusion.

How do you survive in environment like this? Actually, it’s amazingly convenient. Because everyone in the UAE has to work somewhere, the solution (for most white collar workers) is to have mail delivered directly to the office, which at this Viceroy’s administrative office is checked diligently twice a day by an office worker. Any mail is personally dropped off at my desk. Interestingly enough, this means that the UAE’s bizarre system of no postal delivery actually makes mail delivery incredibly convenient.

KARACHI, Pakistan – The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday as video emerged of him urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country.

The arrest of Adam Gadahn is a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement’s No. 2 commander.

This is a major victory on top of the string of successful strikes and arrests of AQ and Taliban leaders in Pakistan. The real question we’ll start asking is, since he at least was an American citizen, how he will be treated? POW, enemy combatant, criminal? This debate is going to be started all over again. Considering we’ve intentionally targeted him with UAV strikes in the past, my assumption is he will not be treated as an American citizen, especially since he has publicly renounced his citizenship which makes him legally stateless.

Apparently not. Seems nobody is sure at the moment.

The campaign has been a typical democratic affair. In a country tense with all the random violence, all parties are guilty of faning the flames of fear. Several major Shia leaders are pushing their people to vote because of a widespread fear of returning Baathists. Meanwhile, secular party leaders are warning against a Shia-led theocracy that be subservient to their lords and masters in Iran. While this is typical in a democracy, the risk is that this fear-mongering may become a self-fulfilling prophecy, or that when violence inevitably happens, the stage has already been set for the conclusions people will make.

I just got off the phone with a Western colleague who is working in Iraq and who has been there on the ground for almost three straight years, primarily in Erbil, Kurdistan. He has a pretty positive view on the country and on the elections when we spoke today, despite the fact that more than two dozen people have been killed in election violence, and his comment appears in the title of this post. (This guy works at a private company in an operation that is designed to avoid the typical pitfalls of running a business in Iraq. His office in Erbil has its own generator to make sure they can operate through the numerous powercuts in Iraq. They have invested in a direct satellite-to-internet connection so they do not rely on local providers.)

Al Qaeda’s “local affiliate” has pledged to disrupt the voting process with attacks, but voting seems to be going forward and the hope is that these elections will result in less violence. The bodycount has been steadily dropping for the past few years. And we can only hope that it continues, and that these elections provide some stability to a country that was ranked by the Economist as the most “business unfriendly” nation of 2010.

In the early autumn of 2005 I took a 12 hour night bus from Ontario Canada to New York City to meet Robert D. Kaplan. It was a harrowing journey. At the border crossing, at about 2AM, all passengers filed off the bus to have their passports checked. It was about a 45 minute operation. I went through with no problems, but the officer looked at me a little funny.

You see, I had just come back from Iran, and had visas for China and Kazakhstan in my passport. When asked why I had visited, I answered honestly, “Recreation.” Upon asking my affiliation I promptly replied, “Royal Military College of Canada”. That must have triggered something.

Once everyone was back on the bus (and in one location, mind), a customs officer with the manner of a doberman boarded and pointed an accusatory finger towards the back of the bus — at me! “You, come with me.” he barked with authority. I grabbed my bag and made my way to the glass holding area beside passport control for questioning. The officer there was actually pretty friendly, and when I told him my business in America it turned out that he too was a Kaplan fan. All was fine and I was out within 10 minutes.

Unfortunately the Glass Cube of Interrogation was in full view of all the passengers on the bus. So once I came back aboard and made my way to my spot near the back of the bus, I received a number of suspicious stares. It seemed that every American around me thought that I was either a spy or a terrorist. Not a relaxing journey.

Anyways, I didn’t mean to bury the lede, but that story needed telling. Once again I will be making a pilgrimage to meet the man himself: Robert Kaplan will be speaking about the Indian Ocean in Tokyo on March 12. I have already made my reservation with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and will be going up to Tokyo for the day by Shinkansen. I am of course willing to meet up with any readers, or anyone else going to the talk. Feel free to contact me at myname@mydomain (obscure enough?). Or use the contact form.

Finally, there will inevitably be a question and answer period. Dear readers, what do you want me to ask him?

The New America Foundation has mapped drone strikes in Pakistan over the past 6 years using Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann’s drones database. Their policy paper is here, describing their methodology. Although they estimate the “true civilian fatality rate since 2004” to be “only” 32 percent, they criticize the use of drones as ineffective, and no substitute for a proper strategy in Pakistan. At the same time, “drone attacks in the tribal regions seem to remain the only viable option for the United States to take on the militants based there who threaten the lives of Afghans, Pakistanis, and Westerners alike.”

The drone database is an ongoing project. The latest map update was March 2nd.

My interests in political identity/loyalty, organization, small government and resilient communities are focusing my time and thinking on topics less relevant to Coming Anarchy. So what does this mean?

I’m officially downgrading my status to part-time CA blogger. basically just making ‘official’ what’s already the case. However, I’m starting a new blog, Rethinking the United States where I’ll focus on the domestic stuff. My foreign policy, travel and security related posts will still go there and I’ll crosspost anything else of relevance. I invite you to subscribe and hopefully participate in the discussions. The address is

The Somoza family ruled Nicaragua from the 1930s until the late 1970s, and Tachito Somoza was effectively leader of the country from 1967. Wilson was a strong supporter of the right-wing Somoza, and felt that his strong anti-Communist regime was being undermined by Jimmy Carter’s wishy-washy human rights-focused foreign policy. In trying to cajoul President Carter into supporting Somoza, he fought in the House appropriations committee, and at one point threatened to wreck President Carter’s Panama Canal Treaty if the U.S. did not resume supporting Somoza.

Wilson’s admiration for Somoza was unaffected by his offer of a large cash bribe to Wilson the first time they met in person (which were unnecessary—Wilson was a true believer). And when Wilson set up a meeting between Somoza and an allegedly former CIA operative, in a small party where the booze-was flowing freely, Somoza was initially delighted at the offer of a 1000-man squad of ex-CIA operatives to fight on Somoza’s behalf. But in a drunken stupor, Somoza made the mistake of fondling Tina Simons, a secretary of Wilson who was also his girlfriend at the time. (It was not Wilson but Somoza’s mistress Dinorah, who was present at the meeting, who went into a rage and ripped Somoza from Tina.) The fiasco embarrassed Somoza, who then lost interest in the squad when he heard about the price tag of US$100 million. Wilson was so embarressed by the situation, and in his awkward attempt to hijack US foreign policy after word of the meeting leaked out, that he abandoned his support for Somoza.

The aftermath? Somoza was ousted and exiled to Paraguay where he was assassinated. Nicaragua fell to a revolution led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and President Reagan later authorized the CIA to support the remnants of Somoza’s National Guard, the “contrarrevolucionarios” that became known as the Contras. And Tina Simons ended up testifying against the alleged CIA operative and disappeared into the witness protection program.

Charlie Wilson was embarressed and disgraced by the Somoza fiasco, which left people thinking he was reckless and had terrible judgment. But failure is the mother of success. Wilson learned from this experience: who he should work with in the US government, what was realistic, who he should trust, and the avenues of influence and barriers to success that faced him as he sat in Congress. It was this experience that taught him what to do when going solo on US foreign policy. And that was what lead to Charlie Wilson’s War.

Part of the joy of working in Dubai is that 90% of the city is non-Emirati, and you regularly meet and interact with people from all corners of the world, some with very peculiar names. Some colleagues have spent years collecting a list of these peculiar names, and I share a few highlights below (listing nationality in parentheses, where known).

• Fabian Philandrianos: Manager (France)
• Chlorophyl Yip: Lawyer (Hong Kong)
• Superman Chan: Account Manager (Philippines)
• Twinkle Ling: Account Manager (China)
• Thomai Vaginis: IT Manager (Spain)
• Willy Rider: General Counsel (England)
• Peggy Trollio: Secretary (South Africa)
• Nyu Kok: Executive Assistant (Vietnam)
• Arsol Iroshka: Lawyer (Lithuania)
• Christodoulos Christodoulos: Finance officer
• Martha Anus: Manager (Australia)
• Ali G.: Waiter (Lebanon?)
• Cherry Fries: Sales Coordinator
• Alien Yam: Deliveryman
• Amanda Cockhead: Secretary (South Africa)
• Young-suk Kim: Project Manager (Korea)

(As it happens, you can actually find several of these people on facebook and linkedin…)

I will say that the clannish, arrogant nature of the scientists engaged in monitoring and explaining climatology to the world has been their undoing. Proclamations of fact in a science heavily reliant on hypothetical, seemingly malleable computer simulated projections along with a lack of transparency, a rather unscientific element of advocacy and the poisonous nature of their handling of skeptics have lent the concept of climate change an identity more closely related to religious orthodoxy than actual science. The message came to be more important than the method.

It was on the matter of method that the Institute of Physics in the UK addressed the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry. I believe this is the first time a scientific organization has weighed in in such a critical fashion. A snippet:

1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.

2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself – most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change.

I’ve chosen the first two statements purposefully so as to avoid “cherry picking.” There are additional observations a bit more damning of the CRU’s methods and I’d encourage a full read of the statement. It’ll be interesting to watch where both the science (assuming it’s reformed accordingly) and the politics regarding climate change head in the near future. It’ll also be interesting to see, if transparency and independent review are allowed, how long the current consensus holds together.

Jordan is a poor country, and feels like one of the poorest I’ve ever visited. Outside of Amman, nothing is built properly. Most one and two story houses have bare concrete pillars on the roof with exposed steel waiting for money or opportunity to build an additional floor. Only one road, the desert highway that stretches from north to south from Amman to Aqaba, is smooth while all other roads are pot-holed. There are essentially no new cars on the road. Nomads herding sheep and donkeys are common.

Looking at the GDP-per capita figures, Jordan is much poorer than countries I have visited such as Turkey, Thailand, Kazakhstan, and Oman but notably richer than Vietnam and Cambodia. However, both Vietnam and Cambodia are growing and have export-based diverse economies. Jordan’s economy has basically remained stagnant since 1995, and I can’t help but think that the Bedoin nomad culture contributes to this. On two occasions, I spoke with middle-aged Jordanian men who scoffed at the idea of concepts such as “work” and “ambition” and said that the best thing to do was to live like a nomad and enjoy a nap in the sun whenever the mood.

On that note, I should note that there are two occupations in Jordan that are unusually common: serving in the police and military, and life as a nomad herding sheep and goats. I drove a total of 500km (300 miles) and went through perhaps twenty police and military checkpoints. Most of these were cursory passport checks, or my car was just waved through, but on several occasions I was asked for my passport, and one occasion they searched the trunk of my car. Also during my drive across the country I saw countless shepherds and nomads, living in camps and tents and herding their animals in every part of the country. Only 10% of the population is believed to be nomadic, but they are truly everywhere.

The management of Jordan’s many ruins is distressingly bad, and this must improve if Jordan hopes to expand this sector. Tourism accounts for perhaps 20% of the country’s GDP but the sector is still deemed to be underperforming considering the country’s rich history. For example, it rained heavily in Petra the day before I visited. When I did visit, there were countless Bedoins of all ages trying to sell me postcards and trinkets in ever part of the enormous complex, yet not one took a shovel and spent the ten minutes that would have been needed to clear washed-up debris from the paths that blocked the thousands of people who were visiting the site that day. There is also more trash at the tourists sites than I have ever seen at any comparable site in the world, ever. There is no shortage of money for maintenance and cleaning—they just hiked the entrance fees with a meaningless “service fee” that is scheduled to rise even further in a few months—yet this is galling considering the shoddy state of the place.

On a final note, the portrait of King Abdullah II is everywhere. He is seen in his military uniform, wearing royal garb, wearing Arab garb, wearing a business suit, smoking a traditional Arab water pipe, typing on a keyboard, greeting local religious leaders, and much more. I would wager that his portrait is more ever-present than the Kim father and son duo in North Korea. It feels all the more peculiar that the king has blue eyes and has a pretty weak beard, being half English (as recently discussed on this blog), despite the fact that many Jordanians are darker-skinned and have much fuller facial hair.

I don’t want to sound too pessimistic or dark about Jordan. Amman is the strongest economic city in the Arab world for a thousand miles in every direction. And the country is perhaps the only Muslim nation in the Middle East where Christians are treated as full citizens taking part in civic life and Christians and Muslims live side by side. And the people are generally welcoming of foreigners in their midst. But I find it hard to be optimistic about Jordan’s future given the social and economic factors noted above. I’ll be discussing more about my travels to Jordan over the coming weeks, after I am safe and sound at home in Dubai.

Be a man! These issues are meant to be discussed in these venues. You’re brave speaking at a distance, but a coward when it comes to talking face to face

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to Venezuelan comedian President Hugo Chavez at Monday’s Latin American Unity Summit. The two apparently got into quite a verbal row which included the flinging about of obscenities and Chavez accusing Uribe of planning to assassinate him. Cuban President Raul Castro, noting the irony of two Latin American leaders shouting at each other at a Latin American Unity Summit, stepped in to calm things down a bit. Strange times indeed when a Cuban communist dictator is the voice of reason at a multi-national summit.

The Vice President (as others) noted that

“We have long relied on nuclear weapons to deter potential adversaries. Now, as our technology improves, we are developing non-nuclear ways to accomplish that same objective.”

Non-nuclear weapons development includes the administration’s plan for an “adaptive” missile-defense shield and conventional warheads “with worldwide reach,” he said. “With these modern capabilities, even with deep nuclear reductions, we will remain undeniably strong,” Mr. Biden said.

The idea of replacing some nuclear weapons with conventional capabilities is not new. The argument is that the increasing destructive power of modern conventional weapons combined with the ability of the United States to ‘reach out and touch someone’ anywhere on the globe in a minutes or hours can play the same deterrent role as nuclear weapons currently do.

In order to break down this argument, I’d like to make two things clear. Firstly, the goal of our current nuclear force posture is to deter adversaries from attacking us and our allies. Secondly, the means to accomplish this is not and should not be the focus of discussion but instead the end. What do I mean? Many people focus on the weapons themselves, i.e. nuclear weapons, but as Biden notes, if conventional capabilities can fulfil the same function (i.e. survive a first strike and destroy enemy targets with high certainty), then they can be substituted for nuclear weapons. In short, how we do it doesn’t matter. The key thing is the destruction of enemy targets with high certainty. The fact that we use nuclear weapons for this purpose is a reflection only of the fact that they are the best suited weapon available for this task today.

However, there are very serious problems with the idea of replacing nuclear with conventional weapons.

If we accept the proposition that today, or sometime in the future, conventional weapons will be on par with nuclear weapons in terms of their deterrent capability, then several logical conclusions must follow:

1) These conventional weapons would be just as dangerous as nuclear weapons. Therefore replacing one with the other makes no substantive difference. Moreover, it would require time, money and effort to do this all with no gain.

2) If conventional weapons are used in the future in the same role as nuclear weapons today, they could invite a nuclear response from adversaries whose conventional capabilities do not match our own. This would be possible also in smaller conflicts because an enemy could then never be sure what weapons were employed since both nuclear and conventional are equall bad. It would lead to escalation at a much higher pace.

3) Having more conventional weapons in the US deterrent may lower the threshold for use.This may encourage a first strike by us or others.

4) If conventional and nuclear weapons are ever equal, they will be sought after by other states just as nuclear weapons are. This leaves us in the same situation as today. However, if the conventional capability is more expensive or difficult to achieve than nuclear weapons (which is older technology now), it will actually encourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

5) If these conventional weapons are indeed equal, it means countries will be able to acquire destructive power equal to nuclear weapons, but WITHIN the legal framework Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This will lead to the irrelevance and death of the most important and successful nonproliferation regime the world has.

6) If conventional weapons can equal nuclear ones, they will require the same types of arms control agreements and nonproliferation agreements as nuclear weapons.

7) Replacing nuclear weapons with equally capable conventional weapons is a cosmetic change which does nothing to address the underlying nature of the international system which makes deterrence necessary in the first place. It’s a change in form, not substance.

Readers, I’d appreciate any thoughts, criticisms and comments you have on this.

While we fret about the Internet’s contribution to degrading the civic engagement of American kids, all teenagers in China or Iran are presumed to be committed and engaged global citizens who use the Web to acquaint themselves with human rights violations committed by their governments.

Read the whole article and the comments. I follow Morozov’s blog and his writing in FP. Often I find his op-eds heavy in rhetoric and light on data, so I am looking forward to his book on the Internet and democracy, which will be released later this year.

Related: Evgeny Morozov’s TED talk

UPDATED: Sorry, this post was sitting in the drafts and published without editing. I was supposed to go to Saudi Arabia but that has been postponed until next month. Stay tuned for more on that!

Please, John, come back.

Maybe you prefer your queens to be a little more randy? Check out the bit that Curzon posted a few weeks ago: It’s not Victorian. Mitchell & Webb are also excellent at challenging conventions in this Nazi skit.

Not really a joke, but a similar effect to Andy’s bit but in the field of philosophy, check out the Duck’s story of two philosophers shoveling snow.

Now, get back to work.

The Middle Eastern Theater of the Great War opened with the British capture of Basra, which was vital to securing oil supplies for their forces. After that, the war was stuck at a stalemate for years, with the primary British interest pulling in the Arab forces to fight with them against the Turks. This was a difficult task—the Turks were, afterall, Muslim brethren of the Arabs—but the recent favoring of Turkish nationals over the recent decades of the Ottoman Empire made many Arabs sore with Ottoman rule.

William Shakespear, who had first met Ibn Saud in 1910, looked to secure Saudi support for the British, but any long-term relationship between the two countries was damaged significantly when Shakespear was killed by Rashidi forces in the Battle of Jarrab. From then on, most British policymakers—including T.E. Lawrence and Lord Curzon—advocated the “Hussein Policy” of alliance with Hussein bin Ali, the Sheikh of Mecca. Although the British entered into the Treaty of Darin with Ibn Saud in December 1915 by which they recognized his sovereignty and paid him to continue his war against the Ottoman-allied Al Rashid, Ibn Saud’s reluctance to quickly move against the Rashidis, and the lack of Ibn Saud’s ability to directly attack Ottoman interests, put Hussein at the forefront of the “Arab Revolt.” After Hussein was successful in capturing Meccah, Jeddah and Taif in quick succession, the majority view inside the British camp was overwhelmingly in his favor. The Saudi-Rashidi theater became, as some might call it, a sideshow of a sideshow of a sideshow (A Lawrence of Arabia reference, for those of you who don’t get it.)

In 1917, the tide turned decisively in the favor of the British. In February, after years of battling in the region, the British decisively capture Kut in Iraq. , the forces of the Arab Revolt, led by Auda ibu Tayi and T. E. Lawrence, captured Aqaba, while a British offensive recaptured Suez. Finally, after a big push towards Jerusalem, the Ottoman forces surrended on December 9, 1917, and the war in the Middle East was over, although it took another 10 months for an armistice to be signed.

The two big events from the battle of Jerusalem until the end of the war were telling as to what the next decade would bring. First, we saw the first real battle between Saudi and Husseini forces in a skirmish at Al Khurmah; and the independence of northern Yemen as an independent Shia state.

Mahmud al-Mabhuh, a senior Hamas military commander and a founder of the Al-Qassam Brigades, was assassinated in the luxurious Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai on 19 January (or 20th January, accounts differ). On the day of the incident, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced that he died of terminal cancer in a hospital in the United Arab Emirates, but nothing more was said publicly. The news of his murder was only made public ten days after the assasination occurred. The account of his murder is unclear—he was either suffocated, electrocuted, poisoned, or injected with a drug that induced a heart attack.

The Dubai police have asserted that the assassination team consisted of eleven suspects holding various European nationalities. Also, two Palestinians were arrested in Jordan and handed over to Dubai, suspected of giving logistical assistance. One has been reported to be a security official in the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority, which begs the question from Hamas and others: is Fatah teaming up with Mossad to target Hamas? (Rumors are rampant, however, and some think that this was a Hamas inside job, while others suspect Mossad.)

Of course, all of this is reminiscent of the film Munich, which narrates the allegedly true story about Israel’s covert assasination of people involved in the attack on Israel Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972. Seeing the newspaper, however, one of my (Muslim) colleagues said it reminded him more like the hooligans from Oceans Eleven.

Fun gossip and rumors:

• This could be evidence of expansion of Israel’s assasination policy.
• Police chief Dahi Khalfan has said he will issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if investigators show Mossad was behind the killing.
• Meanwhile, there was no comment from Dubai-based diplomats from the countries linked to passports carried by the alleged assassin cell: six with British, three Irish and one each from France and Germany.
• A former high-ranking Mossad official, Rami Igra, told Israel Army Radio that the assassination, despite looking like a professional job, was far too amateurish to be Isaraeli, noting that the assailants were seen on a security camera.
• Poor Jerusalem-based British citizen Melvyn Mildiner was shocked to see his name and passport number listed as one of the suspects. He told Reuters news agency that he has never been to Dubai and had no connection with the Mossad or the assassination.

Via Political Warfare

Colonialism and independence realized the decline of Arabic in Africa in many languages. Swahili, a major African language up the African east coast, has used the Latin alphabet since the 19th century, despite heavy influence from the Arabic language, along with Malagasy in Madagascar. Songhay, Yoruba and other West African languages were, in some regions, written in Arabic, although all are now written in the Latin alphabet. Nearer Arabia, Harari in Ethiopia, Berber in northern Africa, and Nubian in the Sudan area no longer use Arabic script. Even Afrikaans was written in Arabic by some people for part of the 19th century.

During the Arabic rule of Spain, Mozarabic, Aragonese, Portuguese, and Spanish were written in Arabic. During Ottoman rule of Eastern Europe, several languaegs—Greek, Bosnian, Romanian and Albanian—were written in Arabic script. Elsewhere in Europe, Tatars used Arabic to write Polish and Belarussian. But the decline of the Ottoman Empire saw the rapid abandonment of the Arabic script, and Turkey’s voluntary abandonment of Arabic script in 1928 saw the end of the Arabic script in Europe. Even the Kurds abandoned Arabic for a Latin alphabet in 1932.

The Russian Revolution and Soviet rule saw the switch from Arabic to the back-and-forth use of the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, depending on the mood fo the Bolsheviks at any particular time. Russia’s central Asian languages such as Bashkir, Tatar, Chaghatai, and Chechen sporadically used Arabic but now all use Cyrillic. The languages of the Central Asian republics—Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and Tajik—are the same, having abandoned Arabic in the 1930s. The same is true for Azeri in the Caucasus. Uyghur in western China is the only Turkic language that still uses the Arabic script, and it remains an official language in that part of China.

In distant East Asia, Malay in Malaysia and Indonesia used Arabic script until Dutch and British influence gradually replaced that script starting in the 17th century. Some Filipino languages also abandoned the use of Arabic at this time. And finally, the Hui Muslim people used to write the Chinese and Dungan languages in Arabi script in a script called Xiao’erjing.

In addition to the obvious factors—imperialism, colonialism, and the Soviet hegemony—another factor was the printing press. Because there are several forms of each Arabic letter depending on where it appears in the sentence, material produced in the Arabic script could not be easily reproduced with a printing press.

In our previous discussions on what language to learn, Arabic has generally been rated as a second or third tier language in order of importance. A century ago, when the real-life Curzon, Younghusband, Chirol and Munro-Ferguson travelled the globe, it surely would have been a first tier language, if for nothing else than for the dominance of its script from southern Africa to western China. Those days, however, are long gone.